Serenity before the storm
As she awoke once more curled up in the armchair, she began to shake off the disoriented feeling of falling asleep in one location and waking up... elsewhere. After supper she had gone to her rooms, but as always made her way back to his side in her sleep. She looked down on him once again, willing him to wake, to look at her, to stir a bit at least.
"Wake up now, come out here, foolish man and speak to me. I'm not leaving until you do," she pleaded, her voice as clear and unconcerned as the first time she had said it, so very long ago. Far from tiring of her vigil, she found a certain satisfaction in living her life in an armchair near his sleeping form. A sort of serenity had found her, here in the sick ward of her former school. She relished the myriad daily rituals: feeding him, dressing him in fresh clothes, grooming his fingernails, washing his hair.
It was this last routine that usually woke him to her presence, his lunatic mind winding his way into hers. She had long since forced herself to stop going to his mind, Dumbledore had forbidden it, convinced it kept him locked into himself. She had other ideas, but she would try things this way for a while. The problem was, of course, that if she ignored him for too long, he came looking for her.
'Go back, darling. We can't be together this way anymore, I've told you that. Come out, into the real world with me. We are safe now, alive, both of us,' she told him, her hands busy with the task of shampooing his silky locks. Her fingers rubbed into his scalp delicately, the soap lathering up and covering her small pink hands. 'I promise I won't leave you. I need you, as you need me.'
He laughed, a hearty rolling laugh. Not manic, or insane, but gentle and sexy and sweet. It didn't help her resolve any. 'My dear, all we have is here, in the garden, just you and I in the grass. All that remains out there is pain and darkness. I've seen it, my angel. Haunting me on the stretcher. My beautiful Hermione, there is nothing else for me now,' he thought in a firm reply, determined to get his way. She never answered him. Instead, she rinsed his hair, and left his bedside, calling for Poppy to return to help her dress him.
"Finished already, dear? Tut tut, I'll take that basin, then. There, now isn't that better, all fresh and clean, Severus?" she asked the sleeping form. It had become her habit to speak to him as Hermione did, as if he were listening intently. As the two witches finished putting fresh clothes on him, Poppy thought again of the young man before her, one she had known for so many years. Such a brooding and angry boy he had been, the scars that covered his body nearly broke her heart sometimes, and sharing the burden of that secret with Hermione had made them fast friends. Sharing the burden of his care sealed the deal. This young woman was certainly a remarkable little thing.
Hermione cared for him in a hundred different ways every day. Tedious, bothersome chores for a man who might never wake, or who might be raving mad when he did. Poppy knew him; he might be bitter and surly with her for her efforts, if he managed whole and sane. Perhaps, though, with time... Albus could be wrong, after all. It was rare, but known to happen. Whatever the future, she was glad to see the girl going out this evening. Time with the friends she saw so rarely, time for herself that she really should make more of a habit.
"Poppy, would you come to my room later, help me dress?" Hermione asked as she buttoned his final button, smoothed the collar carefully, and stepped back to admire her work. He really did look peaceful, she thought. She knew he'd absolutely hate that. A giggle formed in her mouth and she struggled to quash it.
"Of course, dear. Oh, company it seems. I'll leave you then. Hello George, good to see you again so soon," she said over her shoulder as a tall, muscular young redhead stepped into the room. He walked up and kissed Hermione firmly on the forehead with a chuckle.
He did have a way of making an entrance. She repaid his chaste kiss with a hug, and waved her hand toward her usual chair. She finished fussing with Severus' blanket, smoothed his wet hair off his face and lowered herself stiffly into a chair beside him. He was jealous, the affection and easy grace of her treatment of Snape was clearly sensual. Her hug was clearly not.
"So, ready for the bash, Hermione?" he asked. "Gonna be a pretty big one, I hear. First big Quidditch match after the war, you know."
"I'm ready, if only I still fit into my dress now Poppy has determined to feed me every time she lays eyes on me. I swear, if I see one more sandwich in that anteroom of hers, I'll just scream," she answered, with a hint of something mischievous playing in her eyes.
They spent a few minutes catching up the last few days, since his last visit. Or rather, he caught her up on the joke shop, doings with his brothers, and made one more stab at getting her to come to the match with him. She made polite conversation, but her face held an oddly blank appearance. He tried to keep conversation away from Harry and Ron, reckoning that might be the reason for her sudden reserve.
She had become an obsession of his. She had dismissed his guilt with one wave of her hand, and with it captured his imagination forever. The vision of her as a glowing protective goddess still fresh in his mind, he had trouble remembering what she looked like all those years together at school. Now she was someone new, different in a truly exotic way. No one had ever transformed quite this way, under the same troubling circumstances, and he felt strongly bound to watch over her during her bedside vigil.
As they went to her rooms for breakfast, he felt rewarded for his effort. Her laugh was clear and bright, bit like a pond full of sunshine. Her walk was a study in graceful motion, gliding through the hallways as a ghost might. He never for a moment wondered how Snape might've thought her one. He wondered why he himself didn't think she was. Her warm hand on his was one clue. The way his heart leapt to see her happy was another.
She knew perfectly well how he felt about her, and for some reason felt compelled to let him take care of her. He had become her confidant and she had come to care about him almost as much as she had loved his brother once. She was afraid what that would mean for him, as she knew perfectly well she now belonged to another.
Done with her busy work, Poppy returned to her only patient. "Help her dress, Severus, did you hear that? And you know WHY, don't you?" she questioned him crossly.
The healing effected by the spell had left few injuries. One was a brand on her hip, the outline of a monogrammed ring. Another was not visible but internal. Across her lower back, the bones had been broken and the muscle ripped apart. She had been unable to fully heal the damage done to Hermione's back. The bones she had mended, and there was no danger of further impairment, but it left her in great pain to move about unsupported. A brace was required.
Hermione had prevented her from healing the burn. Snape's own peculiarity glowering out from her slight face, it had nearly broken Poppy's heart. Oh, she knew perfectly well where THAT had come from. "All your doing, you sullen old fool. I know it is, somehow. And she begs me keep the secret, too, she does," she reproached him.
Examining the girl just after her rescue, she had found the evidence of so many ills, and being the skilled healer she was she knew exactly what had caused most of them. She promised Hermione then that the story written on her body would remain between them. The burden of his secret had been bad enough. The pain of keeping Hermione's was enough to bring her to tears several times a day.
"'Well, no use lamenting what can't be helped, is there?' she tells me. Imagine, her comforting ME, the poor dear," she cried, looking down once more. "I know where I've heard that before, oh yes," she accused the sleeping man.
Albus had cautioned her to watch the young woman for signs of strain. He seemed to think it a good sign that none had surfaced in so long. Poppy knew it was in fact a very bad sign. She had also seen what could happen when the girl was removed from Severus for too long. She had her own suspicions about what caused it, and they were very different from Dumledore's. She and Hermione were of like mind about that, but he couldn't be dissuaded no matter how long the women worked at him.
So instead, she kept her thoughts, and her secrets, to herself. With the school year approaching in just a matter of days, she should have had plenty to distract her. But she found it increasingly difficult to do so. More often than not, she spent her free time worrying over her solitary patient and his taciturn nurse. And they all had plenty of time and precious few answers.
As she awoke once more curled up in the armchair, she began to shake off the disoriented feeling of falling asleep in one location and waking up... elsewhere. After supper she had gone to her rooms, but as always made her way back to his side in her sleep. She looked down on him once again, willing him to wake, to look at her, to stir a bit at least.
"Wake up now, come out here, foolish man and speak to me. I'm not leaving until you do," she pleaded, her voice as clear and unconcerned as the first time she had said it, so very long ago. Far from tiring of her vigil, she found a certain satisfaction in living her life in an armchair near his sleeping form. A sort of serenity had found her, here in the sick ward of her former school. She relished the myriad daily rituals: feeding him, dressing him in fresh clothes, grooming his fingernails, washing his hair.
It was this last routine that usually woke him to her presence, his lunatic mind winding his way into hers. She had long since forced herself to stop going to his mind, Dumbledore had forbidden it, convinced it kept him locked into himself. She had other ideas, but she would try things this way for a while. The problem was, of course, that if she ignored him for too long, he came looking for her.
'Go back, darling. We can't be together this way anymore, I've told you that. Come out, into the real world with me. We are safe now, alive, both of us,' she told him, her hands busy with the task of shampooing his silky locks. Her fingers rubbed into his scalp delicately, the soap lathering up and covering her small pink hands. 'I promise I won't leave you. I need you, as you need me.'
He laughed, a hearty rolling laugh. Not manic, or insane, but gentle and sexy and sweet. It didn't help her resolve any. 'My dear, all we have is here, in the garden, just you and I in the grass. All that remains out there is pain and darkness. I've seen it, my angel. Haunting me on the stretcher. My beautiful Hermione, there is nothing else for me now,' he thought in a firm reply, determined to get his way. She never answered him. Instead, she rinsed his hair, and left his bedside, calling for Poppy to return to help her dress him.
"Finished already, dear? Tut tut, I'll take that basin, then. There, now isn't that better, all fresh and clean, Severus?" she asked the sleeping form. It had become her habit to speak to him as Hermione did, as if he were listening intently. As the two witches finished putting fresh clothes on him, Poppy thought again of the young man before her, one she had known for so many years. Such a brooding and angry boy he had been, the scars that covered his body nearly broke her heart sometimes, and sharing the burden of that secret with Hermione had made them fast friends. Sharing the burden of his care sealed the deal. This young woman was certainly a remarkable little thing.
Hermione cared for him in a hundred different ways every day. Tedious, bothersome chores for a man who might never wake, or who might be raving mad when he did. Poppy knew him; he might be bitter and surly with her for her efforts, if he managed whole and sane. Perhaps, though, with time... Albus could be wrong, after all. It was rare, but known to happen. Whatever the future, she was glad to see the girl going out this evening. Time with the friends she saw so rarely, time for herself that she really should make more of a habit.
"Poppy, would you come to my room later, help me dress?" Hermione asked as she buttoned his final button, smoothed the collar carefully, and stepped back to admire her work. He really did look peaceful, she thought. She knew he'd absolutely hate that. A giggle formed in her mouth and she struggled to quash it.
"Of course, dear. Oh, company it seems. I'll leave you then. Hello George, good to see you again so soon," she said over her shoulder as a tall, muscular young redhead stepped into the room. He walked up and kissed Hermione firmly on the forehead with a chuckle.
He did have a way of making an entrance. She repaid his chaste kiss with a hug, and waved her hand toward her usual chair. She finished fussing with Severus' blanket, smoothed his wet hair off his face and lowered herself stiffly into a chair beside him. He was jealous, the affection and easy grace of her treatment of Snape was clearly sensual. Her hug was clearly not.
"So, ready for the bash, Hermione?" he asked. "Gonna be a pretty big one, I hear. First big Quidditch match after the war, you know."
"I'm ready, if only I still fit into my dress now Poppy has determined to feed me every time she lays eyes on me. I swear, if I see one more sandwich in that anteroom of hers, I'll just scream," she answered, with a hint of something mischievous playing in her eyes.
They spent a few minutes catching up the last few days, since his last visit. Or rather, he caught her up on the joke shop, doings with his brothers, and made one more stab at getting her to come to the match with him. She made polite conversation, but her face held an oddly blank appearance. He tried to keep conversation away from Harry and Ron, reckoning that might be the reason for her sudden reserve.
She had become an obsession of his. She had dismissed his guilt with one wave of her hand, and with it captured his imagination forever. The vision of her as a glowing protective goddess still fresh in his mind, he had trouble remembering what she looked like all those years together at school. Now she was someone new, different in a truly exotic way. No one had ever transformed quite this way, under the same troubling circumstances, and he felt strongly bound to watch over her during her bedside vigil.
As they went to her rooms for breakfast, he felt rewarded for his effort. Her laugh was clear and bright, bit like a pond full of sunshine. Her walk was a study in graceful motion, gliding through the hallways as a ghost might. He never for a moment wondered how Snape might've thought her one. He wondered why he himself didn't think she was. Her warm hand on his was one clue. The way his heart leapt to see her happy was another.
She knew perfectly well how he felt about her, and for some reason felt compelled to let him take care of her. He had become her confidant and she had come to care about him almost as much as she had loved his brother once. She was afraid what that would mean for him, as she knew perfectly well she now belonged to another.
Done with her busy work, Poppy returned to her only patient. "Help her dress, Severus, did you hear that? And you know WHY, don't you?" she questioned him crossly.
The healing effected by the spell had left few injuries. One was a brand on her hip, the outline of a monogrammed ring. Another was not visible but internal. Across her lower back, the bones had been broken and the muscle ripped apart. She had been unable to fully heal the damage done to Hermione's back. The bones she had mended, and there was no danger of further impairment, but it left her in great pain to move about unsupported. A brace was required.
Hermione had prevented her from healing the burn. Snape's own peculiarity glowering out from her slight face, it had nearly broken Poppy's heart. Oh, she knew perfectly well where THAT had come from. "All your doing, you sullen old fool. I know it is, somehow. And she begs me keep the secret, too, she does," she reproached him.
Examining the girl just after her rescue, she had found the evidence of so many ills, and being the skilled healer she was she knew exactly what had caused most of them. She promised Hermione then that the story written on her body would remain between them. The burden of his secret had been bad enough. The pain of keeping Hermione's was enough to bring her to tears several times a day.
"'Well, no use lamenting what can't be helped, is there?' she tells me. Imagine, her comforting ME, the poor dear," she cried, looking down once more. "I know where I've heard that before, oh yes," she accused the sleeping man.
Albus had cautioned her to watch the young woman for signs of strain. He seemed to think it a good sign that none had surfaced in so long. Poppy knew it was in fact a very bad sign. She had also seen what could happen when the girl was removed from Severus for too long. She had her own suspicions about what caused it, and they were very different from Dumledore's. She and Hermione were of like mind about that, but he couldn't be dissuaded no matter how long the women worked at him.
So instead, she kept her thoughts, and her secrets, to herself. With the school year approaching in just a matter of days, she should have had plenty to distract her. But she found it increasingly difficult to do so. More often than not, she spent her free time worrying over her solitary patient and his taciturn nurse. And they all had plenty of time and precious few answers.